It's true that the moon's gravity tugs all water facing it
slightly toward the heavenly body.

This creates a high tide on Earth below the moon. As the Earth
spins, the moon appears over different parts of the sky and high
tide follows it around.

But that's less than half the story.

While the moon pulls the water underneath it away from the Earth,
water on the opposite side isn't subject to the same pull; the
moon offsets our planet's center of gravity, making the
force slightly weaker on the side of Earth not facing the
moon.

As Earth rotates, the water moves with it. So when the moon
weakens the pull of gravity on the side of Earth it is not
facing, the momentum of all that water causes the liquid to bulge
on the weaker-gravity side. (That momentum helps waters rise on
the side facing the moon, too, since the moon's gravitational
pull is millions of times weaker compared to the Earth's.)

This forms a sphere-like oval of water, where the narrower edges
of the oval shape are where the tides are high. The two forces
drawing the water in opposite directions leave the long edges,
where tides are low.

So at any given moment on Earth, this complex interaction creates
two high tides and two low tides.

But it's not just the moon

The moon's complex gravitational meddling isn't the only force
acting on the oceans and other bodies of water. Land, wind, and
weather can all affect tidal patterns.

It's complicated

All these forces — gravity, geography, weather, physics — are
acting on tides basically all of the time, either together or in
opposition to one another. It's why tidal patterns can vary so
widely across the globe, or even on a particular beach.

Fun fact: The largest variation in tides anywhere in the world is
at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, where the tidal range can be
as drastic as 55 feet.

In the end, moon definitely gets top billing when it comes to
tides — but it's really an ensemble piece.